The Carlos DeLuna case: Definitive proof that Texas executed an innocent man?

A Columbia law professor and his team compile a massive, super-detailed dossier alleging that Texas sent the wrong Carlos to his death two decades ago

A photo of Carlos DeLuna taken in January 1983
(Image credit: YouTube)

Supporters of the death penalty routinely dismiss the notion that innocent people can get ground up in the wheels of justice. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, for example, wrote in 2006 that not "a single case — not one — [exists] in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit." Well, "Scalia may have to eat his words," says Ed Pilkington at Britain's The Guardian. In Columbia Human Rights Law Review, law professor James Liebman and five of his students lay out over 436 heavily footnoted pages in support of their case that Texas executed the wrong man when it sent Carlos DeLuna to his death in 1989. Are their arguments conclusive? Here's what you should know:

What crime was DeLuna convicted of?

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